Contents

The JMdict/EDICT project has as its goal the production of a freely
available Japanese/English Dictionary in machine-readable form.

The project began in 1991 with the expansion of the "EDICT" simple
Japanese-English dictionary file. (See below under History)

At present the project has the following dictionary files available:

the full JMdict file in XML format. The JMdict file is aimed at
being a multilingual lexical database with Japanese as the pivot language
and also includes
translations of words and phrases in a number of languages other
than English. More information is available from the
JMdict overview page.

the EDICT file, which contains a reduced amount of information, and
is provided to maintain support for software which uses the original
EDICT file format. A short
EDICT overview page
is available which lists some of the software which uses this file;

the EDICT2 file, which is in an expanded format and contains almost
all the information in the JMdict file;

the EDICT_SUB file, which contains about 20% of the most common
entries in the EDICT file.

An internal database is used to hold all the data associated with the project,
and the files are generated from using conversion utility software.

The original forum was the
sci.lang.japanUsenet newsgroup.
More recently a
mailing list
specifically for project discussion has begun. (Mail to
edict-jmdict-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
to initiate subscription.)

The basic format of the entries in the dictionary files can be seen in
detail by examining the
DTD
(Document Type Declaration) of the XML-format JMdict file. The DTD is
heavily annotated with content and structural information.

In summary, each dictionary entry is independent, although there may
be cross-reference fields pointing to other entries. Each entry consists of

kanji elements, i.e. headwords containing at least one kanji character,
plus associated tags indicating some status or characteristic of the
headword. Where there are multiple headwords, they have been ordered
according to frequency of usage, as far as this can be determined;

reading elements, containing either the reading in kana of the headword,
or the headword itself in the case of headwords only in kana. The elements
also include tags indicating some status or characteristics. As with the
kanji headwords, where there are multiple readings they have been ordered
according to frequency of usage, as far as this can be determined;

general coded information relating to the entry as a whole, such as
original language, date-of-creation, etc.

sense elements, containing the translational equivalents or glosses of
the headword(s). As Japanese is not highly polysemous, there is often only
one sense. Associated with the sense elements is other coded data indicating
the part-of-speech, field of application, miscellaneous information, etc.
As with headwords and readings, the glosses are ordered with the most common
appearing first.

The format and coding of the distributed files is as follows:

the JMdict file contains the complete dictionary information
in XML format as per the
DTD.
This file is in Unicode/ISO-10646 coding using UTF-8 encapsulation.

the EDICT file is in a relatively simple format based on the text data
file of the SKK input-method. Each entry is in the form:

KANJI [KANA] /(general information) gloss/gloss/.../

or

KANA /(general information) gloss/gloss/.../

Where there are multiple senses, these are indicated by (1), (2), etc.
before the first gloss in each sense. As this format only allows a single
kanji headword and reading, entries are generated for each possible
headword/reading combination. As the format restricts Japanese characters
to the kanji and kana fields, any cross-reference data and other
informational fields are omitted.

The EDICT file is distributed in JIS X 0208 coding in EUC-JP encapsulation;

the EDICT2 file is in an expanded form of the original EDICT format.
The main differences are the inclusion of multiple kanji headwords and
readings, and the inclusion of cross-reference and other information
fields, e.g.:

In addition, the EDICT2 has as its last field the sequence number of the
entry. This matches the "ent_seq" entity value in the XML edition. The
field has the format: EntLnnnnnnnnX. The EntL is a unique string to help
identify the field. The "X", if present, indicates that an audio clip
of the entry reading is available from the JapanesePod101.com site.

The project was begun in 1991 by the current editor
(Jim Breen)
when an early DOS-based Japanese word-processor
(MOKE - Mark's Own Kanji Editor) was released, containing an initial
small version of the EDICT file. This was progressively expanded and edited over
the following years. In 1999 the EDICT, which by this time contained
about 60,000 entries, was converted into an expanded format and the first
XML-format JMdict file released. The EDICT2 format was created in 2003,
primarily for use with the
WWWJDIC
dictionary server.

The growth in entries in the file is largely due to the efforts of Jim and the
many people who contributed entries to it over the years. The increase in entry
numbers has slowed as the file has achieved coverage of a large proportion
of the Japanese lexicon. Much of the editorial work in recent years has
concentrated on amendments and expansion to existing entries.

Dictionary copyright is a difficult point, because clearly the first
lexicographer who published "inu means dog" could not claim a copyright
violation over all subsequent Japanese dictionaries. While it is usual to
consult other dictionaries for "accurate lexicographic information", as
Nelson put it, wholesale copying is, of course, not permissible, and
contributors have been advised to avoid direct copying from other sources.
What makes
each dictionary unique (and copyright-able) is the particular selection of
words, the phrasing of the meanings, the presentation of the contents (a very
important point in the case of this project), and the means of publication.

The files of the project are copyright, and distributed in accordance with the
Licence Statement, which can found at the WWW site of the
Electronic Dictionary Research and Development Group
who are the current owners of the copyright. As explained in the licence, the
files are available for use for most purposes provided acknowledgement
and distribution of the documentation is made.

In general no inflections of verbs or adjectives have been included,
except in idiomatic expressions. Adverbs
formed from adjectives (e.g., -ku or -ni) are generally not included.
Verbs are, of course, in the plain or "dictionary" form.

Composed forms, such as adverbs taking the "to" particle, keiyoudoushi
adjectives, etc. are only included in their root from, however the
part-of-speech (POS) marker is used to indicate their status.

Nouns which can form a verb withe the auxiliary verb "suru" only appear
in their noun form, but have a POS marker: "vs", to indicate the existence
of a verbal form. In general the gloss only relates to the noun itself, but
entries are being progressively expanded to include the verbal glosses as well.

The ke_pri and equivalent re_pri fields in the JMdict file
are provided to record
information about the relative commonness or priority of the entry, and consist
of codes indicating the word appears in various references which
can be taken as an indication of the frequency with which the word
is used. This field is intended for use either by applications which
want to concentrate on entries of a particular priority, or to
generate subset files.
The current values in this field are:

news1/2: appears in the "wordfreq" file compiled by Alexandre Girardi
from the Mainichi Shimbun. (See the Monash ftp archive for a copy.)
Words in the first 12,000 in that file are marked "news1" and words
in the second 12,000 are marked "news2".

ichi1/2: appears in the "Ichimango goi bunruishuu", Senmon Kyouiku
Publishing, Tokyo, 1998. (The entries marked "ichi2" were
demoted from ichi1 because they were observed to have low
frequencies in the WWW and newspapers.)

spec1 and spec2: a small number of words use this marker when they
are detected as being common, but are not included in other lists.

gai1/2: common loanwords, also based on the wordfreq file.

nfxx: this is an indicator of frequency-of-use ranking in the
wordfreq file. "xx" is the number of the set of 500 words in which
the entry can be found, with "01" assigned to the first 500, "02"
to the second, and so on.

Entries with news1, ichi1, spec1 and gai1 values are marked with
a "(P)" in the EDICT and EDICT2 files.

While the priority markings accurately reflect the status of entries with
regard to the various sources, they must be seen as
only providing a crude indication of how common a word or expression actually
is in Japanese. The "(P)" markings in the EDICT and EDICT2 files appear to
identify a useful subset of "common" words, but there are clearly some
marked entries which are not very common, and there are clearly unmarked
entries which are in common use, particularly in the spoken language.

Okurigana Variants

Okurigana variants in headwords are handled by including each variant form
as a headword. This is to enable software to match with variant forms.

Spellings

As far as possible variants of English translation and spelling are included.
Where appropriate different translations are included for
national variants (e.g. autumn/fall, tap/faucet, etc.). Common spelling
variations such as -our/-or and -ize/-ise are handled either by repeating
the gloss in both spellings or appending spelling variants in parentheses.
No attempt is made to tag English spellings according to country of usage.

Gairaigo and Regional Words

For gairaigo which have not been derived from English words,
the source language and the word in that language are included. Languages have
been coded in the two-letter codes from the ISO 639-2:1998 "Codes for the
representation of names of languages" standard, e.g. "(fre: avec)" in the
EDICT/EDICT2 files and
<lsource xml:lang="fre">avec</lsource> in the JMdict
file.
In the case of gairaigo which have a meaning which is not apparent from the
original (usually English) words, the words in the source language are
included as: (trans: original words).

A number of tags
are used to indicate that a word or phrase is associated with a particular
regional language variant within Japan. The tags are:

The JMdict file has the capacity to record glosses for Japanese headwords in
many languages. Although not maintained as part of the current project, the
full JMdict file includes glosses for a large number of entries in French
and German, and a smaller number of entries in Russian and Dutch.

The sources for the main non-English glosses are:

the French material (58,000 entries) come from two sources:

a 17,000 entry Japanese-French dictionary file from the
Dictionnaire français-japonais
project being undertaken by Jean-Marc Desperrier. As Jean-Marc says on
that page, his project's aim "est de traduire en français une partie du
dictionnaire japonais-anglais Edict de Jim Breen". His project is
continuing and is being supported by a number of French speakers;

about 41,000 entries from a dictionary compiled by
le projet francais pour francophone
This file, which also appears to be based around
translating the EDICT file, has been made by selecting the entries not
already in Jean-Marc's file, and converting them to EDICT format.
These entries have "JF2" at the end of them.
(There is some evidence that this file mayuse translations generated by an online resource such as Babelfish.)

the German material (79,000 entries) is from the
WaDokuJT
Japanese-German dictionary file compiled by Ulrich Apel;

a small Japanese-Russian
dictionary file being compiled by Oleg Volkov.
(documentation
- in Russian)

A number of other Japanese dictionary projects are closely related to this
one. Among them are:

the
ENAMDICT/JMnedict
Japanese Proper Names Dictionary project, which currently has nearly
600,000 named entities. The files are available in EDICT or XML formats.

the
KANJIDIC
and
KANJIDIC2
project, which maintains and distributes databases of information about
kanji.

the
COMPDIC
file in EDICT format of computing and telecomms terminology. In 2008 the
COMPDIC material was included in the main EDICT/JMdict database with tagging
indication the entries relate to ICT. A separate "COMPDIC" file is extracted
for distribution.

the
RADKFILE/KRADFILE
file of visual elements in kanji, which can be used for finding kanji
in dictionaries.

Since 1991 a large number of people have contributed to this project; far too
many to list here. All their contributions have been most welcome, indeed
without the assistance of speakers and students of Japanese this
project would not have achieved as much.

The EDICT/JMdict has been granted approval to use material from the
Japanese WordNet.
This approval is most welcome. (See the Japanese WordNet
licence.)